Nine Fleaweight robots brought
their wedges, spinners, an expertly
crafted beater, and a servo-articulated chop saw to the fight. It
was an incredible collection of bots
and a great competition. My two
spinners, Hedgehog and Tomahawk,
both lost two consecutive matches
and were eliminated early. In
winner’s bracket action, John
Parsons and his beater bot Lolcat
(Figure 1) sent my Mateo
teammate Matt Benjamin and his
bot Baby V (Figure 2) to the loser’s
bracket, along with Rosie the Littler
(Figure 3) and Transcendental
Terror. Also in top bracket action,
Chris Atwood of team Sandman and
his bot Tracked Terror (Figure 4)
sprinkled some sleepy dust on Kyle
Singer’s chop saw bot Kongol
(Figure 5) and Jeremy Campbell’s
spinner bot Rebound, sending them
both to the bottom bracket while
propelling himself to the winner’s
bracket semi-final showdown with
Lolcat.

Tracked Terror won the semi-final match and moved on to the
finals. Baby V fought its way back in
the loser’s bracket and earned a
semi-final rematch against Lolcat.
This time, Baby V won the judge’s
decision in a close match, and
moved on to the finals to face
unbeaten Tracked Terror. In the
championship bout, Tracked Terror
was just too much for Baby V and
won an easy victory with an
unstoppable combination of speed,
power, and driving skill.

Tracked Terror uses a set of

FIGURE 3.

Fleaweight bot
Rosie the Littler.

lightweight Pololu hubs and tracks.
You can check out the track system
and other great robot products on
the Pololu website at
www.pololu.com.

Between the Fleaweight and
Antweight bouts, competitor Kyle
Singer of team Twisted Sick Robots
entertained us by demonstrating his
proficiency with drift skates. When I
first saw the skates (Figure 6), I
thought they were casters for his pit
equipment. That was right up until
Kyle threw them on the ground,
somehow balanced himself on
them, and then took off by moving
his lower body to generate
momentum (Figure 7). It was
impressive. You can find drift skates
on the Web — use them at your
own risk! Kyle said it took him
about a week to get used to them.

This year, Motorama welcomed
several couples in either a
supportive or competitive role. Event
Safety
Coordinator
Ed McCarron
and his wife
Beth (Figure